The Gratuitous GetKelly File
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: All my short stories that have no justification for existing other than to whump Kelly. Slash, gen, episode-related or not - if it's gratuitous Kelly whump with no other redeeming factors, it's in here.
1. Perchance to Dream

AN: Collection of many neglected fics in my sentbox. Trying to get all out of the way so I can quit with relatively few regrets.

* * *

1: Perchance To Dream, slash

Searing, metal, ripping—agony so sharp he can't breathe—must keep silent, don't scream, give those bastards the satisfaction, not after they killed—but hell, he's being—ohGodohGodpleaseplease—his arms, his hipbones, his knee-joints—he can envision the slick balls of the joints popping loose from the sockets, trailing fluid, see the cracks spreading through his vertebrae, the piercing electric-shocks of splintering bone making his mouth open in a gaping grimace, the tears tracking down his face in a—

Warmth whispering down his cheek, smoothing the tears away. The horrible pain in his joints displaced by soft, aching relief. The scream of creaking metal and wood and bone extinguished, damped by a blanket of quiet, of perfect peace. The iron that cut into his wrists melting away, his flaming skin soothed by gentle fingers rubbing tiny circles into his flesh, chasing away the memory—_memory?_—of pain.

His body curls into itself, seeking relief after being stretched out so mercilessly, and is immediately gathered in, long limbs wrapping around him, his refuge, his shelter, his cradle. He's ashamed to reach out, weak, something tells him, he knows he's weak and unworthy… But it doesn't matter, because there's the deep voice murmuring reassurances into his hair, the big hands smoothing up and down his back, and Kelly's face is pressed into his partner's chest, and he huddles close, knowing he's weak for needing the comfort but unable to relinquish its welcoming warmth.

Until, that is, he feels the tiny tremor in the hands that soothe him, and it's then that he wraps his own arms around his partner, feeling, for the first time, the shudders that rack the strong frame. He doesn't think it's a weakness then, not when he shifts up to press his cheek to Scotty's, to whisper reassurances that he's just peachy-keen, Gaston, and not to skimp on the bouillabaisse. It heals him to embrace Scotty securely, heals him to feel how his partner holds fast to him as though to a life-preserver, heals him to give comfort as he takes it.

Scotty's not weak, Kelly knows, and hell, maybe, just maybe, he, Kelly, isn't quite as weak as he thought he was. Maybe a man just needs a port in the storm, to help chase the nightmares away. Because whether it's nightmares of past tortures or future bereavement, sometimes you need to prove to yourself that you're here, and now, and warm, and safe, and alive, and _together._


	2. Silent Partners

AN: Collection of many neglected fics in my sentbox. Trying to get all out of the way so I can quit with relatively few regrets.

* * *

2: Silent Partners

It's flaky not being able to banter. Far _out. _Kelly would go so far as to say, from _Mars_.

The doc said the gas would wear off and their voices would come back within a couple of days, but it's still like the Twilight Zone. He snaps his fingers and raises his brows and makes funny faces at Scotty, and when that fails he scribbles stuff on a pad, because Morse code gets damn old after a while.

Of course, his genius partner speaks sign language in three languages, only he, Kelly, doesn't, so that's out. Lip-reading is good up to a point, but '' and '' just don't lend themselves to the skill.

So now he has to lie still, deprived of choice comments while Scotty fixes up his back. It's not serious, but try telling that to his partner, who's making a big deal out of the fact that the skin was abraded off a lot of it. Being dragged bare-chested across a concrete floor will do that to you. It's not that he doesn't appreciate being patched up and all, but – ow! That antiseptic _stings! _

Kelly flaps a hand at his partner, turning his head and frowning as he lies on the bed._ Ow! Lay off!_

Scotty rolls his eyes. _Crybaby._

Kelly points an accusing finger. _I'd like to see you being all manly and stoic while a so-called 'friend' pours hydrochloric acid – _he gestures to the antiseptic – _into your wounds!_

_Hydrochloric acid? _Scotty looks at the label on the antiseptic with an exaggerated gesture, and returns to meticulously patting it into the scrape. _Being a little overdramatic, aren't we?_ He lays the back of his hand briefly against his own forehead and flutters his lashes to emphasize the point.

_Overdramatic? I'll have you know… _Kelly rises onto an elbow. He must have pulled on his back, because he gasps (soundlessly, of course) and blinks, feeling slightly woozy.

Scotty's still rolling his eyes, but he's caught Kelly with a hand under the front of his shoulder and the other cupping his cheek, and he lowers him carefully to the bed. _Hold still, _he says, and Kelly can imagine the bossy tone. The dark hand reaches behind Kelly, and comes back to wiggle in front of his nose, displaying that it's wet with blood. _Opened up the cuts, bleeding. _Or _Now look what you did. _Probably both, knowing Scotty_._

_Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. _Kelly rolls his eyes too, and mimes pounding a fist against his chest, gingerly this time.

Scotty captures his hand and lays it on the bed, and Kelly can see some of the real distress in his eyes. He supposes it can't have been easy for Scotty, bound and helpless, watching the fight. He allows, too, that there was a lot of his blood smearing the floor when he was all done subduing the enemy single-handed. The thought makes him smile a little.

_What are you smirking at? _Scotty asks, eyes still haunted.

_Me, _Kelly makes him understand with a combination of lip-reading and gestures, _single-handedly subduing hostile forces while you were,_ he makes sure Scotty gets it, _all tied up…_

Scotty doesn't rise to the bait of the pun, a sure sign he's more upset than he lets on. _You coulda untied me, you know._

Kelly looks incredulous, affronted. _With what? Telekinesis?_

Scotty looks sheepish. _I know you didn't have time, but…_ The gentle hands return to his back, the antiseptic stinging less now he seems to have finished with the deeply abraded center.

The embarrassment in the brown eyes makes Kelly feel guilty. Kelly wants to tell Scotty he knows, wants to tell Scotty he understands the feeling, but he can't say it. Instead, he closes his eyes, letting his head settle more comfortably into the pillow as Scotty sets the stinging stuff aside and follows up with a soothing cream.

That feels so wonderful, cooling the stinging burn, that Kelly grins widely, unable to help his dopey smile. Scotty maybe sees it, too, maybe understands more in Kelly's silence than Kelly is letting on, because a moment later, he rests his brow against Kelly's shoulder; Kelly can feel the warm rush of breath against his bare skin as Scotty exhales deeply. He doesn't need to see the man's face or read his serious, earnest eyes to read the words from another time: _We almost lost you._

He raises his hand; it finds Scotty's hair, and he smoothes his hand softly over the man's head again and again._ I'm here, man, not going anywhere. I'm here and I'm safe, and I'm okay, and I'm counting on you to be, as well, and to pretend nothing happened, pretend we couldn't die any minute, because here you are and here I am and I don't want you to be unhappy and we love each other and I don't want what could happen to spoil what we've got_ _right now_—And then he stops, because he's saying a lot more in this enforced silence than he ever would have if he'd had words to fill in the gaps.

They stay like that for a long time. When he feels Scotty's hands return to their ministrations, Kelly opens his eyes a crack, long enough for Scotty to notice, and tips him the wink.

Scotty doesn't smile – not with his mouth, anyway. But his eyes crinkle at the corners, and his head moves from side to side in a little, rueful shake.

It hurts Kelly that he can't protect Scotty from everything. He supposes he shouldn't begrudge Scotty feeling the same. He supposes it's why they're so hell-bent on patching each other up: _if we can't prevent the hurt, man, at least we can heal it._

Huh. He doesn't know who said that last. Perhaps they said it together.


	3. Hospital Scene, 'Rack'

**3: Changing Kelly's Dressings Post-Castillo, 'Room with a Rack'**

Scotty won't listen to the nurses and leave the room when they dress Kelly's back. He knows he ought to, but he needs to see for himself how his partner's healing.

He feels guilty, too, because he knows Kelly's biting back his groans, keeping silent for Scotty's sake – and yet, as Andrea and Jenny snip at the gauze wrapping Kelly's back, peeling it away gently to spare him pain, he can't bear to look away, can't bear not knowing.

Gripping the bedrail, Scotty steels himself for the sight he's seen every three days for the past two weeks – black stitches pulling together welling cuts with shredded edges, long, raised ridges of rough, peeling welts, ointment glistening upon shiny, raw expanses oozing clear fluid where the lashing systematically stripped the skin off Kelly's back.

But today, as the gauze comes off, he sees something else, and draws in a breath.

The red-raw, flayed flesh is covered with a translucent layer; over the rawness and the welts, delicate new skin is growing back, fragile and incongruously baby-soft.

The nurses are smiling and whispering, but Scotty can only swallow over the lump in his throat and give thanks. More than ever, the delicate new skin make his deadly, hardened secret-agent partner seem like—like someone fragile, like—He shakes his head. Kelly's not like that, never was. He's doing him a disservice to doubt his strength.

"Mr. Scott, could you help us out?"

He's moving before he fully registers the question. "Sure, what can I do?"

"We need to take the stitches out, and our third nurse isn't here today. Could you apply the ointment immediately they're out?"

"Sure." He heads into the bathroom to wash his hands. "You're gonna give him a local first, right?"

All he hears is silence. Drying his hands on a paper towel, he comes out, seeing the nurses look at each other.

"I said, _right?"_

"The thing is, Mr. Scott…"

"The thing is what?"

"A local impedes blood flow. We need as much blood flow as possible to promote healing. Taking out stitches isn't painful…"

"Oh, you know from experience?"

The nurse shrinks back before his glare. "N—o, but…"

Scotty rises, his anger at the last two weeks finding a target. "Do you know how Kelly sustained these injuries, Nurse?"

"I—uh…" She blanches.

"You think it would be the greatest thing to feel 'em all over again, relive that trauma all over again?"

"Hey, man," Kelly calls. "Let the nurses do their job, okay?"

"And you can just shut up."

"I can take a little pain."

"You've taken enough to last a lifetime."

"I'm not an invalid!"

"That's what _you_ think, Jack."

"It's all right," says Andrea. She holds up a spray bottle. "We can use Xylocaine superficially. It won't be systemic, so it won't impede circulation, but it'll numb the pain."

He fixes her with a hard stare. "You're sure it won't hurt."

There's something like sympathy in her eyes. "Quite sure, Mr. Scott."

He kneels by Kelly, and wants nothing more than to take him in his arms, but of course that's Bad Idea of the Day #218, so he settles for accepting the tube of ointment from the nurse, and watching as she snips the threads and pulls them out, handing them to the other nurse. With each stitch she pulls out, his fingers are immediately there, packing each sad little hole in Kelly's flesh with the smooth paste before it can begin to bleed, wishing he could wave a magic wand and heal all this, go back in time and prevent this whole miserable incident from ever having happened…

It seems to go on forever, but he notices that Kelly's deeply relaxed, not flinching, and he'd know if he was, because he's pressed so close to his partner's body that he can feel each breath as it rises and falls. As they finish removing the stitches, the nurse gestures to him. "Do the entire back," she says with an encouraging smile, "so the dressing won't stick to it."

As the nurses prepare the bandages, Scotty fills his hands with ointment. Gingerly, he glides slick fingers over that delicate new skin, making his touch feather-light as he spreads the ointment conscientiously over the sore, raised welts. "Hope you enjoy having your own personal valet," Scotty mutters in mock disgruntlement, but is shocked to find his eyes stinging, and he bends his head to his shoulder, blotting his face hurriedly.

He's so distracted by his own momentary weakness that it takes him a minute to realize that Kelly hasn't made an answering quip. "Hey. How—" he clears his throat, which is scratchy, too, oh, this is the best development— "how you doin', Hobey?"

"Wonderful," Kelly says, but his voice is thready.

Scotty lightens his touch even more. "Hurtin' some?"

"Nope, not really," mutters Kelly. "Kinda tired, though."

"We'll have your back all dressed in a minute, and then you can rest," Jenny says perkily. "Mr. Scott, help us lift him?"

"Easier… for you… if I sit up," Kelly breathes, and throwing his legs over the bedside, heaves himself up to a sitting position before any of them can react.

His gasp of pain is audible, and Scotty grabs him under the arms even as the bandaged head falls forward to rest on Scotty's shoulder. "Jackass!" he snaps, Kelly's ragged breathing loud in his ear.

"…Easier…" the stubborn ass gasps again, trying to move.

"Okay, okay, whatever you say, man," Scotty mutters, easing his grip on Kelly's ribcage, just taking some of his weight as he sits slumped against him. "Can you work on him, ladies?"

The nurses say something in assent. Scotty lets Kel's head stay on his shoulder, but has to remove his hands from Kelly's sides as the nurses wrap the bandages around his torso. Kelly's hands lie limply in his lap, and Scotty takes them in his, grimacing at how cold they are, chafing them softly to warm them. The nurses keep working, and they're doing their best to be gentle, but Kelly's injuries are just too great, and sometimes, Scotty can tell, they do hurt him. When Kelly flinches, Scotty flinches along with him – unmanly, but he can't help it – and tightens his grip on the cold hands. "Easy, there, Otis," he murmurs. "You can rest all you want in a minute." He shoots a death-glare at the nurse unfortunate enough to be in his line of sight. _Hurry up._

Finally, they're done. Scotty eases Kelly back down into bed on his side, using the crook of his elbow as a support, not daring to grip and maybe hurt any spot on Kelly's bruised and battered torso. He slides his arm out from behind Kelly, adjusting his head on the pillow, and pulls the sheet up to cover the freshly bandaged body. "Way to go," he murmurs. "Gonna be just fine, Champ." He doesn't dare pat Kelly's swollen shoulder, so he pats his cheek, then slips his hand into the tuft of hair at the top of his head to massage his scalp with his fingertips. He keeps at it, the pads of his fingers parting the roots of Kelly's hair, until the even breathing tells him the man has fallen asleep. Even then, he can hardly bear to let go of his partner, but reluctantly withdraws his hand. The man needs his rest.

He turns to see the nurses standing in the doorway, smiling radiantly, lips slightly parted. "What are _you_ staring at?"

He could swear, as they turn hurriedly and exit into the corridor, that he heard something sounding like 'squee'.


	4. Kindness' WhatIf

My guilty pleasure: what-ifs. What if Kelly had actually, like, _shown _the effects of all those punches in the face he took before the famous locked-room scene in "A Cup of Kindness"?

Like the guys didn't get whumped enough in canon. Geesh.

* * *

Scotty had barely had time to sit disgustedly back against the various bales and packing crates before the door burst open and Kelly was catapulted powerfully inside in an unruly jumble of gangling arms and legs. The throw was far too violent, and Scotty registered the size of the behemoth making the toss just as Kelly flew past him and landed hard out of Scotty's sight, in a narrow passage cleared between the piles and stacks of goods.

He winced at the thud of Kelly's body hitting the cement floor, and he'd scrambled to his feet and was standing at the mouth of the narrow passage before his higher brain function had anything to say about it. His mind caught up pretty fast, though – wouldn't do to embarrass Kelly and himself, overreacting – and so he stopped, trying to peer into the dark, making excuses for his own reaction. That guy really _had_ thrown Kelly kinda hard, and the impact of landing had sounded bad. He was just making sure—But Kelly hadn't risen yet, and he'd wasted enough time. "Hey," he called, crouching to what little of Kelly he could see in the narrow space, "you magnificent flyin' machine, how was your landing?"

There was no answer, and it shot him through with a pulse of fear. Heck with it, anyway. He crawled into the narrow space, so narrow his shoulders touched it on both sides. It was too dark to see much in between all the crates, so he reached out, wood and burlap against his shoulders, his hands meeting warm, if bony, flesh – ah, knees, good. Blocking his way, though.

He gently straightened out his partner's legs and planted a knee on the floor between Kelly's own, for balance, then reached forward into the darkness, fumbling across waist and torso until he found the outflung arms. Gripping Kelly's shoulders carefully but firmly, he pulled him up to a sitting position. His head promptly lolled forward. "Giah, aiy, mimuu," said Kelly.

"The wonderfulness of your debate skills and finely honed precision of words," said Scotty, both reassured and unsettled by the slurred attempts at speech. "Can we get some light here, James Watt…?" He tried to haul Kelly forward into the light, tugging on Kelly's arm. Kelly gasped, and Scotty froze instantly in dismay. "Sorry, man," he muttered. "'Kay, let's see…" He was forced to balance awkwardly on one knee, sliding closer to Kelly, which was okay – his eyes were getting used to the dimness in here. He pulled Kelly to him, letting his partner's upper body rest against his stomach, holding his head steady with his left hand while his right probed the skull gingerly for lumps. Uh-huh, right _there_. "Oh goody, Mount Rushmore. Got a little bust of Abe Lincoln right here, I can feel it." He gentled his touch, feeling a wet cut, wincing at Kelly's hiss. "Settle down there, Chester," he hushed. "Merely performing some routine first aid."

"…'clude… scoopin' m'brains outa m'skull?"

"You are making assumptions based on no evidence," Scotty said smoothly. "Who is to say that there was any grey matter in there in the first place?" He brought his hands down to skim Kelly's upper body, feeling for any broken bones or distended lumps – it had been quite a noisy fight out there, even if his partner had been holding his own for most of it… "All right," he said finally, with a gentle pat to Kelly's cheek, the one that wasn't mashed into his stomach. "Nothing broken. Quit your malingering."

"Malingering, malin—Me?" Even slurred, Kelly's indignation was clear. "I hold four gorillas at bay while you take most of the decade to open a safe, and then get nabbed… ah…" Kelly's tirade trailed off suddenly, his shoulders sagging as he gasped for air.

That did it. Scotty bent over as far as he was able in the cramped space, sliding his hands under Kelly's arms and heaving him upwards. Way uncomfortable, and certainly making Kelly dizzy, but he'd had enough of fumbling around in the dark. Kelly flailed, trying to stand, and Scotty encircled him with his arms, quieting the jerky motions. "Easy. Easy. Just lemme do the work for a second, Homer. Not doin' us any good pinwheeling like a punchy prizefighter."

"Pinwheeling like a…" Kelly muttered, jerking his head up defiantly from where it was trying to droop onto Scotty's shoulder. "You take a corr… correspondence course in allilli…" He sighed. "Alli… allit…"

"Right. 'Kay. Here." Scotty picked out the softest pile of burlap sacks he could find and lowered Kelly to a half-sitting, half-reclining position. He had to be careful with the head wound, splaying his fingers wide as he cupped the back of Kelly's head so as not to aggravate the lump and the bleeding there, relieved when he'd eased it fully down to rest on the rough material. "Look," he said, low and urgent. "You're probably not concussed, but let me see your eyes to make sure. Open up for Uncle Alexander, now."

Kelly's frown as he complied was evidence of photophobia, which could be an indication of many things. The eyes seemed okay, but he couldn't really tell. "How many fingers?" He held up three.

"I'll have one, please."

"We do not have time for this…"

"I don't _know,_ all right," Kelly muttered. Scotty had barely felt the chill of fear at those words when Kelly waved a floppy hand, dismissing him. "G'wan, do your magic tricks… see what I can do to help…"

Much as he hated to admit it, Kel was right. Fussing wouldn't do them any good if they waited for a bullet in the back. "You take care, now," he said as he rose, patting Kel's knee. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"…narrows it… dow'…"

Probably not too bad a concussion, Scotty tried to squelch his unease as he took inventory of the warehouse's contents. He stole another glance at Kelly; lying back, eyes closed. Normally he'd be pacing around with that suppressed energy of his, at Scotty's back, helping. Anything that could make him lie limply there was not a good sign. But for once his partner was right. Not much he could do about it till they got out of here.

He'd get them out, he vowed. _Soon._


End file.
